/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13386931]

What are the historical/genetic reasons why the Russians became such good writers?

[Anonymous No.13386934]

your pic is proof that you're full of shit, shit book, shit race, shit country

[Anonymous No.13386952]

>>13386931
Suffering, all the best culture comes from areas of constant suffering: Russia/East Europe as a whole, Ireland, the Southern US, Latin America.

[Anonymous No.13386956]

>>13386952
That would imply the quality of literature has gone down dramatically with the advent of industrialisation

[Anonymous No.13386979]

What are the historical/genetic reasons why the Irish became the ultimate writers?

[Anonymous No.13386986]

Both Irish and Russian literature is a glib facsimile of the English greats.

[Anonymous No.13386995]

>>13386986
england has over 10x the population of ireland
if ireland had as many people as england, nobody would bother reading literature from england

[Anonymous No.13387025]

>>13386931
Russian literature started to shine in the first half of the 19th century, so I would assume that some kind of educational and cultural groundwork was laid. Russian aristocracy had a lot of time and money on their hands, and they mostly were well-educated, learning several languages, including Latin, Greek, and French, (the latter used more often than Russian). With enough time, access to lots of literature, including contemporary, the intellectuals of Russian aristocracy - and Russian aristocracy was numerous. so it had the potential to produce a lot of those - first created their own works based on foreign authors, then exploded with a plethora of it's own cultural products, once there was enough material to base and develop upon.
This lasted until the beginning of the 20th century, with commoners such as Chekhov eventually getting the ability to shine. However, at some point most of the intelligentsia and aristocracy was either shot or fled the country, with a few people, such as Mayakovsky, or Bulgakov, remaining. The tradition was destroyed, as was classical education, Platonic-like censorship was instituted, and the next generations of Russian writers were never as fruitful as previous ones, even if there were some talented people.

[Anonymous No.13387087]

>>13386956
It has. Irish literature is trash since they got wealthy.

[Anonymous No.13387091]

>>13386979
>A million dead, a million fled

Irish population was reduced by half in about 30-40 years.

The starvation specifically targeted the indigenous Irish speaking population most, reducing their population by 80 percent.

[Anonymous No.13387097]

>>13386931
>such good writers
>they wrote at least 10 world-famous masterpieces!!!

[Anonymous No.13387159]

>>13387025
this. Its the same reason Irish literature was so good around the same time. A shit tonne of highly educated wealthy people hanging around doing fuck all beyond riding a horse around their estates produces good literature.

[Anonymous No.13387162]

>>13386931
They had good teachers from Germany and France.

[Anonymous No.13387502]

>>13386931
It's cultural, the same reason Russia dominated Chess for years, because it was the spirit of the nation and it was nearly expected of anyone with the opportunity to try their hand at it and know at the very least the basics. It was the hobby of the time, and while it's falling off, Russia is still above most nations with how well read their populace is, I'd say.

[Anonymous No.13388885]

>>13386931
I just read The Death of Ivan Ilyich last month, it's fantastic. Tolstoy really is a genius, an incredible writter who is able to make you visualize everything he writes, because it just seems so realistic.

To me, the way he wrote about the agony of Ivan prior to die was so fucking incredible; the way he describes even the positions Ivan gets up of bed because of the absurd pain really impressed me.

I got sick (nothing serious, but it hurts as fuck) and I could only remember this, when reading the book. It was really painful when I got sick, I would sit on the bed because I could not lay and all. So this really made me feel more empathy for Ivan.

So, yes, I liked the book more than I expected.

Can't wait to read more of Tolstoy: precisely, War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

[Anonymous No.13388906]

>>13386931
there's fucking loads of them
russia is huge
not a surprise that they could find at least a handful of people that can write well

[Anonymous No.13388978]

>>13388906
>there's fucking loads of them
Wrong. The territory is fuckhuge, but the actual amount of people has always been unimpressive.

[Anonymous No.13389168]

>>13386956
This and the fall of a social class whose only purpose was to please their superiors and understand what their peers really meant to say by seeing through etiquette